Phoroneus
Phoroneus ( Greek Φορωνεύς ) is a river god in Greek mythology . He is a son of the river god Inachos and the nymph Melia or Argeia . His siblings are Aigialeus and Io .
According to other tradition, Phoroneus was not a god, but the first man to discover the use of the fire that Prometheus had stolen from Olympus . He is also credited with introducing the worship of Hera and the art of blacksmithing. To him is an anonymous epic from the 7th or 6th century BC. Dedicated to the Phoronis .
Phoroneus as ruler
Phoroneus succeeded his father on the throne. He gained rule over the whole of the Peloponnese and founded the Kingdom of Phoronea . He is also said to have founded Phoronikosstadt , the first trading colony in the Peloponnese, later Argos . The people who had previously lived scattered across the country settled here in one place.
Phoroneus had two wives, on the one hand the nymph Teledike . With her he had two children, Niobe and Apis . With the nymph Kerdo he fathered Kar , the first king of Megara . Another illegitimate son is Europs . After his death he was buried in Argos, where he was still venerated during the time of Pausanias . His son Apis took the throne after him.
After Phoroneus, his sister Io was also called Phoronis .
Phoroneus as river god
The wife of Zeus Hera and the sea god Poseidon challenged the river gods Phoroneus, Asterion , Kephisos and Inachos to determine one of the two as ruler over the Argolis . The panel selected Hera. Poseidon punished the river gods for not choosing them because of water shortages and allowed the sources of the rivers to dry up.
swell
- Libraries of Apollodorus 1.57, 2.1
- Pausania's travels in Greece 1.39.5-6, 2.15.5, 2.20.3, 2.21.1, 2.34.4-5
literature
- Albert Bernabé (Ed.): Poetarum epicorum Graecorum testimonia et fragmenta. Vol. 1. Teubner, Leipzig 1987, ISBN 3-322-00352-3 , pp. 118-121
- Lutz Käppel : Phoroneus. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 9, Metzler, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-476-01479-7 , Sp. 953.
- Paul Weizsäcker : Phoroneus . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 3.2, Leipzig 1909, Col. 2435-2440 ( digitized version ).
Web links
- Phoroneus . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 13, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 008.
- At Vollmer from 1874
- The new formation of the human race
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Inachos |
King of Argos 19th century BC BC (mythical chronology) |
Apis |